


Safe

by rudbeckia



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Death, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 18:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13746480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia
Summary: Kylux Cantina Prompt: A full tank of gas should get him to the border. It’s enough to reach the safehouse. There, he’ll know if the others have made it out alive.Ben is driving in the post apocalyptic wasteland that used to be the country he served. The only thing that keeps him going is the thought that someone might be waiting for him.





	Safe

All he could think about was their last get-together, sitting invitingly close and talking in quiet murmurs in the moonlight while nearby the rest of the squad snored in beer-induced slumber by the embers of their camp fire. He’d wanted to say so much. Perhaps he’d said too much and none of it the right thing.

Was it really most of a year ago? If he saw him again he’d—

Pushing such thoughts down—he would not risk the pain of vain hope—he struggled to keep his eyes clear and checked the road ahead. The GPS still worked although power cuts meant that the phone recharging on the passenger seat was useless outside the sparse islands of 3G he encountered from time to time. After a while he stopped checking for news of the disaster. Social media was a mess of backwood-survivalist _told you so_ jeering and alien invasion conspiracy theorist wailing, and that was the last thing he wanted to see. If those fools had _ever_ been good enough for military service they’d—

He shook the anger away. He wanted to see red hair lit up by the sunset, bluegreengrey eyes that looked at him out of a pink-cheeked face with an easy smile as if he was the last man on Earth. Not a happy thought under the circumstances, he reflected with his mouth pressed into a grim line.

Ben drove steadily, mindful for once of his father’s advice about the most efficient driving speed and the importance of not braking or accelerating sharply. A day ago he’d’ve loved the opportunity to take the souped-up, stripped-down Falcon out on a deserted highway and let rip. Ben pushed a hand through his hair and glanced at the screen beside him. Nothing.

He decided the uncertainty was the worst. He was running away but had no idea what he was running towards.

They’d all agreed on the first camping trip that started their annual tradition, laughing and joking, that when the apocalypse came (as it surely would, in the form of mushroom clouds or calamitous natural events or some lab-grown virus) they’d make for the border. A friend of a cousin of a guy they knew had a safe place and a good heart and would let them in. They’d made a big deal out of sharing and storing coordinates, and now Ben didn’t know what else to do. It was probably bullshit, but better a bullshit road trip to nowhere that stay and suffer what—

Don’t think. Just drive. Don’t look at the blackened, scarred landscape with charred farm buildings and...

Maybe on another road a few hundred miles west or a few hundred miles east of him, another truck headed north carrying the others. Their old squad ready for their annual wilderness camp to talk shit, lounging around a fire, under the stars and laughing at just how incredibly unlikely it was that they were all still around to reminisce about the old days.

Ben snorted at the phrase. The _old days_ ended only five years ago when he’d completed his twelve years. In at eighteen, out at thirty having seen and done enough for ten lifetimes of tall tales. By rights he should be coming home from some hypothetical mundane job and telling his hypothetical kids mundane bedtime stories. That was the dream, right? Not move back in with dad and bear the brunt of his concerned looks and questions about whether or not he was feeling better today when every sudden noise made him see and feel danger.

Night fell quickly and the orange glow over the city the road signs said should be only two miles off the highway was absent. Nothing else moved. There were intact cars abandoned here and there beside the burnt out shells on shiny melted and re-solidified tarmac, probably out of fuel, owners leaving them to try to walk to safety. Ben had no time to stop and investigate whether he might siphon diesel from the dregs in their tanks. He had enough, if he was careful. His training told him to take no unnecessary risks so he would not chance his headlights being seen. He might drive off the road since the moon was barely a sliver, but at least he’d not be—

Focus. He’d see Hux at the safe house and Hux would explain the physics behind it all while he’d listen and pretend to understand. He had to believe in _something_ and it might as well be Hux’s survival. He knew he’d been lucky that when the strike had come he’d been far out of the city. He’d argued with dad about maybe taking that job at the mall. Dad yelled and he’d bolted, got in the Falcon and driven away. He’d seen it in his rear view mirror, slewing the truck to a stop and craning round as red lightning speared down through the air and ignited everything. The hot blast had jolted his truck and the dry grass by the roadside burst into flames. He’d floored it through the sparse Sunday afternoon traffic, mostly stopped to stare, glancing up as a dark wedge crept above, eclipsing the Sun and raining down pulse after pulse of hot, red death. This was not an invasion. This was not a war.

This was an extermination.

Somehow they missed him. Ben drove carefully through the night and when grey tinged the surroundings he drove faster, exhausted with the effort of peering onto the dark. The Sun rose, red, smearing the cloudy sky. _Dust in the atmosphere,_ Hux had once told him. _The blue gets scattered sideways and the red comes right at you. Sunsets aren’t romantic at all, they’re the product of particulate pollution in the air._ Ben smiled. All he’d done was comment on the beautiful sunset but he’d not had the opportunity to express that Hux made it so. Instead he’d asked if Hux could science the shit out of moonlight too.

This time, if... _when_ he saw Hux again, he’d make the opportunity. He’d find the right words and say them.

His phone screen lit up with an error message. GPS was down. Ben cursed. Cramp tightened his calf muscles and his shoulders and he had to get out and stretch, just for a minute. He killed the engine and let the Falcon trundle to a stop. Trees overhung the road here, branches blackened but providing cover. He got out to investigate: the bark was charred and the leaves stripped but the damage was surface deep. The vegetation might even recover.

“Stop. Hands up. Turn slowly.”

Ben froze at the sound of a click. He closed his eyes and swallowed, tears prickling behind his eyelids and spilling warm down his cheeks. The voice repeated. Damnit, he’d got too far to be killed for his truck. He raised his hands. “Look buddy,” he said. “I know a place. A safe place. You can come too.” Ben turned around slowly, head down. “Don’t do this.”

Another click and a hand lowered the gun to the ground. Ben looked up at the other man, too exhausted to do anything to defend himself from...

“Hux?” Ben took a step forward. “Hux!”

It was odd, he thought as he laughed and cried and held Hux tight. All these times he’d been looking for the right words and all he needed to do was say his love’s name.


End file.
